What does Ivanishvili want from returning to power in Georgia?

According to the international group Tasnim news agency, the ruling party of Georgia’s dream He has been in power for 10 years and is very likely to win a parliamentary majority for the fourth time in the winter elections of 2024.

Rapid economic growth, confirmation of EU membership candidacy And the presence of a fragmented opposition has provided everything for a re-victory. In such a situation, it seems that it is enough that the current leadership of Georgia does not spoil anything.

However, the Georgian Dream started the year with changes in the Prime Minister and the Government Cabinet. Irakli Gharibashvili, the popular prime minister of Georgians, who held this position for the past 3 years, resigned at once, and the founder of the Georgian Dream Party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the famous Georgian oligarch, who in the last days of last year entered the Georgian political scene for the umpteenth time. He returned and took the post of the honorary chairman of the party, and became the prime minister.

The official explanation given by the ruling party for this sudden change was to prevent corruption and stop internal conflicts. . However, it seems that more control and management of the party was Ivanshvili’s most important goal of these developments.

Another comeback

This is not the first time that Ivanishvili returns to the field of public politics in Georgia. From the very beginning, he wanted to walk in the shadows, so after being elected as Prime Minister and Saakashvili’s defeat in 2013, he stepped down from power after a few months and gave his place to another person from the party.

Ivanshvili returned to politics for the second time in 2018 as the head of the ruling party, and this time he left politics in 2021 after the Georgian Dream Party won the parliamentary elections for the third time.Ivanishvili’s third entry into politics somehow confirms the statements of his opponents, and that is the famous statement that Ivanishvili is the shadow leader of Georgia. By announcing his comeback, Ivanishvili actually confirmed the assumptions that he has a decisive influence on everything that happens in the ruling party.

In an interview, he admitted that in recent years In order to maintain a healthy environment in the leadership of the party, he has been in contact with the leaders of Georgia’s dream. newsmedia.tasnimnews.com/Tasnim/Uploaded/Image/1402/12/20/14021220164510352295901910.jpg”/>

Bidzina Ivanshvili (right) the founder of the ruling party of the Dream of Georgia next to Gharibashvili, the resigned Prime Minister of Georgia and the current leader of the party

It is possible that According to Ivanishvili himself, his return to an official position will help to convince the Georgian society and the country’s western partners that Georgia does not have a problem called informal government or shadow government. After all, erasing the image of the oligarization monster is directly on the list of tasks that Georgia must do on its way to EU accession.

However. , it is unlikely that Ivanishvili will be able to completely get rid of the oligarchy stigma. After all, he has returned to the Georgian political scene with an unaccountable party position with an uncertain constitutional status and ambiguous political responsibility. An adviser to the ruling party who has the right to nominate a candidate for the post of prime minister in a parliamentary republic. Such a plan does not fit easily in the European structures regarding democratic institutions. >

It seems that there was no need for such complicated maneuvers. Despite the recent difficult years that followed the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Georgia’s dream had a good track record of maintaining relatively high ranks in various fields.

In the economy, in 2022, the country’s GDP will grow by 10.1%. This was largely due to the influx of money from Russian immigrants. In 2023, the growth rate slowed slightly, but still exceeded expectations, reaching around 7%. Also, the increase in 2024 and 2025 is expected to be around 4 to 5 percent.

Remarkable successes have been achieved in the field of foreign policy. Last year, Georgia improved its relations with Brussels and received an important foreign policy task, namely receiving candidate status for EU membership.

Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the opposition , the Georgian Dream Party has been accused of sabotaging the path of Europeanization due to its closeness with Russia and the authoritarian habits of the “Dreamers” political approach. The percentage of Georgians (regardless of party preferences) would like to see their country in the European Union. But now this argument of the opponents has lost its credibility. Because the European leaders themselves have confirmed that there is no insoluble contradiction between Brussels and Tbilisi. , ” src=”https://newsmedia.tasnimnews.com/Tasnim/Uploaded/Image/1402/12/20/1402122016455587295902010.jpeg”/>

Gharibashvili, the leader of the Georgian Dream Party, next to Kobakhidze, the current Prime Minister of Georgia

It gives Georgia’s dream to win the parliamentary elections of Georgia for the fourth time in a row. According to polls conducted in December, the ruling party can count on 36 percent of the votes.

On the same basis, the opposition has formed a coalition of pro-Western forces called “Victory Platform” and includes Opposition parties such as Saakashvili’s supporters, Agmashanbeli’s strategy and former foreign minister Gorgi will be praised, they will receive nearly 21% of the votes. will not He is confident that even without an active election campaign, his party will take 90-100 seats out of 150 in parliament.

So what made him come back? On December 30, Ivanishvili, announcing his return to politics, talked about plans to fight corruption, protect “national identity” and restore “sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country”, as well as plans to join the European Union by 2030 and “introduce Georgia was added to the list of high-income countries.

But there is still no evidence that the changes made in the governing body are the first steps towards achieving these goals. First, the changes in the government were basically limited to the resignation of the prime minister, and the remaining ministers, with the exception of the acting minister of defense, who changed at his own request, kept their positions. Secondly, the program of the new government is no different from the previous government and its nature is a purposeful move towards the European Union and Euro-Atlantic structures, but without persuading the Russians to take tough measures.

Man Number One

Ivanishvili also mentioned the purpose of his return. Against the backdrop of the absence of a strong opposition, “to protect the party’s very strong leadership team against human temptations.” He said, “When there is no strong opposition party to challenge you, it is inevitable to create harmful rivalries in the body and the temptation of power in the leadership of the party.” This makes us think about the existence of serious contradictions within the ruling party. p dir=”RTL”>There are currently no outward signs of a possible split in the Georgian Dream. The resignation of Prime Minister Gharibashvili and his replacement by Irakli Kobakhidze, who previously served as the head of the ruling party, did not provoke any public opposition or political accusations. However, this is hardly a reliable indicator of intra-party unity. In retrospect, we can see that internal strife rarely manifests in the Georgian dream.

More importantly, Gharibashvili, who lost the post of prime minister, was one of Georgia’s most popular politicians. He has spent most of his political life in various government positions, not party positions, he has served as the head of government twice (in 2015-2013 and 2021-24) and enjoys good power within the party. Moreover, he is now only 41 years old. Much younger than the 67-year-old founder of Georgian Dream.

It is logical to expect that Ivanishvili’s young comrade is thinking about an independent post. Moreover, this has already happened in the history of the ruling party. In 2021, another former young prime minister from Georgian Dream, Giorgi Gakharia, took issue with the party’s policies and founded his own party after breaking away from Georgian Dream.

The moment of introducing Kobakhidze as the Prime Minister of Georgia at the extraordinary meeting of the Georgian Dream Party

The biography of the new Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze also speaks for this. In Georgia, he is best known for losing his post as speaker of the parliament in 2019, after Russian MP Sergei Gavrilov took the speaker’s chair at a meeting of the Orthodox Interparliamentary Association. The massive protests that followed in Tbilisi were so violent that Moscow once again suspended air traffic with Georgia.

Since then, Kobakhidze has repeatedly tried to repair his image. He promoted the Foreign Agents Act, which led to mass protests in Tbilisi last year, accused Ukraine of trying to drag Georgia into war with Russia, and spoke about the inadmissibility of homosexual propaganda.

During the Wagner Group rebellion in Russia, Kobakhidze accused Georgian dissidents of wanting to “follow Prigozhin’s path, not only enter Abkhazia and Tskhinvali with tanks, but also seize Sochi.” Kobakhidze’s statements often provoked not only internal protests but also, in some cases, tension between Tbilisi and its Western partners.

Nevertheless, victory in the election is still practically in Ivanshvili’s pocket. After the changes, it is clear that such a politician as head of state is exactly what Ivanishvili needs now, and this change will go a long way in neutralizing a possible threat to Ivanishvili’s personal power.

Author: Mehdi Saif Tabrizi, a researcher in the field of Russia and the Caucasus

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